Jean Riolan the Younger

Jean Riolan the Younger was a French anatomist and an influential member of the Medical Faculty of Paris, born on 15 February 1577 or 1580 and dying on 19 February 1657. His father, Jean Riolan the Elder, was also a noted anatomist, and the younger Riolan served as personal physician to Marie de Medici throughout his career. He is remembered for traditional views of medicine and for championing the teachings of Galen. He disagreed with his contemporary William Harvey about the circulation of the blood, holding that blood reached the extremities and returned to the heart only two or three times a day and that the blood moved the heart, much as a stream turns a mill wheel. He also differed with Harvey over the liver as a blood-making organ, opposed vivisection on the ground that suffering distorted animal function, and attacked Thomas Bartholin over the discovery of the lymphatic system. His best known works are the human anatomy treatise Anthropographia of 1618 and the Opuscula anatomica of 1649, which criticises Harvey. The anastomosis of Riolan between the mesenteric arteries and Riolan muscle of the eyelid carry his name.